Apricot Almond Panforte, bottom
Made with sun-dried Blenheim apricots, peaches, nectarines and dates along with California almonds, it is a delicious dessert or healthy snack and pairs beautifully with fine cheeses and charcuterie trays.

NEW:
Fig Walnut Panforte
Made with California dried mission figs and walnuts with Washington State dried Black Currants (a true currant also known as cassis) for a bit of added vitamin C and flavor.

Marjorie Caldwell isn’t Italian; she’s Hungarian-American. So it’s not her heritage that prompted her to make Panforte (literally “strong bread”), the traditional Italian dessert, made with fruits, nuts and spices.

Rather it was her desire to do something for a fundraiser that “no one else was doing” and a suggestion from a friend who happens to be fond of panforte.

Raising her three boys in Southern California, her cooking focused on quantity. “Teenage boys will eat pretty much anything, and they eat a lot of it,” she laughs. However, after she moved to Napa, California, she was immersed in the food culture of the area.

A new friend was neighbor Connie Green of Wine Forest Wild Mushrooms. “She entertains well-known chefs a lot, and at first bringing something to one of her dinner parties was very intimidating. But once I got over that, I began trying things and I loved hanging out with food lovers.”

Farmers markets became a regular part of her week, and she enjoyed asking farmers about foods that she didn’t know, such as Buddha’s Hand. “They were happy to tell me how they liked to prepare these things.”

Classes at the Napa College Cooking School in St. Helena, further developed her interest in food and expanded her skills in the kitchen.

When asked to make dessert for the fundraiser, Marjorie started with a panforte recipe from the internet, and then “changed just about everything to ingredients that I particularly like,” she recalls. “I want things to taste like what they are, not masquerade as something else, so no candied peel in my cakes. The cooking time is critical, and It took a lot of trial and error, but I’m delighted to say that the results have won praise from chefs and vintners whose opinions I respect.”

Local ingredients, small batches and extraordinary care make Napa Cakes Panforte dense, moist and delicious. Any Italian would be proud.